a standard of judgment or criticism; a rule or principle for evaluating or testing something.
Origin: 1605–15; < Greekkritḗrion a standard, equivalent to kri- variant stem of krī́nein to separate, decide + -tērion neuter suffix of means (akin to Latin-tōrium-tory2)
Related forms
cri·te·ri·al, adjective
Can be confused: criteria, criterion (see usage note at the current entry).
Synonyms measure, touchstone, yardstick. See standard.
Usage note Like some other nouns borrowed from the Greek, criterion has both a Greek plural, criteria, and a plural formed on the English pattern, criterions. The plural in -a occurs with far greater frequency than does the -s plural: These are the criteria for the selection of candidates. Although criteria is sometimes used as a singular, most often in speech and rather infrequently in edited prose, it continues strongly in use as a plural in standard English, with criterion as the singular.
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
a fool or simpleton; ninny.
a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.